BrightMoon: Path of a Witch King

Chapter 9

“Thank you Indra.” Before she could finish turning around I called out to her, “One moment Indra, what are earth blossoms used for?” She turned and looked at me.

Her head tilted a little, “Earth blossoms are something spirits like, I am not sure exactly why, but the blossoms are valuable.”

It was my turn to be confused, “Why would spirits like pretty flowers?” I asked back though I already knew she wouldn't know.

She shrugged, “All I know about them is that they are pretty, valuable, and different spirits consume them differently.” Before she turned to leave again I held up my hand.

“Explain about the different spirits and them consuming the flowers.” I ordered.

She hmm as she thought about it, “What I remember is that water spirits make a tea, wind spirits smoke them, fire spirits eat the ashes, and earth spirits eat them whole. I don't know what they do but it has to be something nice if they are so valuable.” she said and stayed where she was.

“Thank you Indra, I will be up in a minute.” I dismissed her and turned back to the potentially useful cargo. I folded and tore off the part about the earth blossoms, and moved them to another section of the cargo hold.

I dusted off my hands and went up on deck to see my two acquaintances, “Gola, Uran, thank you for coming on such short notice.” I welcomed both of them by firmly grabbing their forearms, their version of a handshake.

“It's not everyday a customer sends a group of beauties with an invitation to a ship, a ship that was once owned by a bandit while the crew are still in town spending their coin at the inn and brothel no less.” Gola said with a devious smile.

Uran however was looking over his shoulder, understandable seeing how we were about to discuss selling cargo that had possibly been stolen twice over.

“Don't worry I will make it quick, here is a list of my cargo, now obviously I am willing to sell to both of you but I don't know how much you can purchase. Secondly the rest of the cargo I have no contacts or acquaintances that would purchase these items. Do you know of a merchant I could speak with?” 

The two looked at the list before looking back at me, “Marcus Yahn.” They said in unison. They smiled sheepishly before Gola took over the conversation, “Marcus runs a trading company here in town, he will purchase your goods at a reasonable price before shipping it down the river. Every town has an outpost of the M&F trading post, just send the list to the trading post and they will come and inspect the goods. After inspection they will haul the goods away, after they pay you of course.”

I had no idea there was a trading company in town, though most of the times I came here it was to get a bath at the inn, food, and clothes before leaving back to the forest. I should have done more research about the town, or asked Petra more questions.

“Alright, well you two have first pick. Do you want to inspect the goods?” both merchants happily agreed and I led them down into the hold, they selected what they wanted and left to get their money.

Indra took a new list of available cargo to the M&F trading company, Gola and Uran returned with some small carts and I helped them load up what they had purchased. 

Just as we were finishing up short bearded fellow cane with a team of young men, “I am Komes, from the M&F trading company. I am here to inspect the goods.” The man was polite but to the point, so all business which was great, I was slightly worried about getting troped by a greedy merchant.

“Right this way Mr. Komes.” I led the man into the cargo hold, he only brought one other person to go with him to check the cargo, I walked with him through what was on the list. He would inspect the item and make an offer, for the most part I just accepted the offers, the only ones I marked up slightly were the weapons and pelts.

Once the inspection was done I walked back onto the deck with Mr. Komes, he disembarked and went to the large cart he had brought. While he and his men were off the boat I walked over to Indra and her sisters. “You three will stand guard in front of the captain's cabin, if anyone approaches you just scream and I will come running.” The girls nodded and took their places outside the door.

I smiled at their commitment to their task, they didn't need to fight anyone but it looked like they were ready to blow out some ear drums.

Komes came back on board with his men, we went down to the cargo hold and I watched as the men started hauling the cargo. Komes and I chatted a moment before he handed me a receipt and a bag with my money.

It was quite the sum and I did a quick check in front of the man to make sure it was all there, once I confirmed it was all there I clasped forearms with the man. Just as we were finishing our handshake I heard a yelp from one of the men.

I looked up to see a young man holding his hand, bright red blood was dripping onto the floor, I quickly walked over and noticed the blood trail on the ground that led to my earth blossoms.

Once I reached the man three of my sprites appeared from behind the boxes of flowers, “What happened.”

The sprites crossed their arms in front of their chests, “That one tried to take the master's flowers, we made him bleed.” they all chimed together, I could see the murderous glares they were giving the young man.

I turned around and looked at the young man, did he seriously just get me wrapped up in the “I am being stolen from.” trope. Can I not just have a nice life, like I already got rid of a bandit, is it so much to ask for just a business transaction.

I sighed aloud. What the hell was I supposed to do with a thief?

“Hey sticky fingers, why were you near my stuff?” I tried not to accuse him of being a thief on a whim. “Clearly the cargo is over there with your mates.”

“I am sorry sir, I just got curious is all.” the young man stuttered. It was clearly a lie, and a terrible one at that.

I needed to know if he saw my blossoms or not. I went over to the sprites who were watching the young man like a bunch of hungry sharks. I wondered if they would eat him if I gave them the ok. “What crate was he touching?” The sprites led me over to a crate on my left.

I saw a few drops of blood on the floor and the crate, I opened the crate and inspected the blossoms. Nothing seemed out of place but there was one last thing I needed to check.

I closed the crate and headed back to the young man. “Ok well here's how it's going to go.” the young man perked up but before I could explain further I grabbed his injured hand, he yelped but refused to open his hand. I c****d back a fist and struck him in the face, the young man blinked and his eyes unfocussed, I forced the young man's hand open and inside was one of my earth blossoms. I swiftly took the blossom and pocketed it.

The young man was coming back to his senses so I struck him again, knocking him unconscious. “Mr. Komes!” I called out to him, he wasn't far and walked over to me.

“This young man had my personal property on his person, I hope you don't mind me dealing with him.” I looked the short man over but strangely he smiled at me.

“No need to worry, we have had complaints about this crew before, but we had no evidence of anything being stolen. Since you found the thief you can beat the rat to death for all I care.” Komes gave me his blessing to do with the thief what I needed to.

Life here was simple yet brutal, with enough strength you could decide who would live or die, as for my thief I was well aware of what would become of his fate.

I held onto my captive throughout the rest of the transaction, Komes and his men left after paying me a small fortune, with that settled I had Indra take us home. My captive woke up just as we were arriving back at the bay, I tied his hands and legs before closing up the bay.

The ship stopped at the stone dock. I had made it before leaving back to town so that way we could easily get on and off the ship. I hopped off the ship and dragged my thief towards the cave. When the cave came into view he started to sweat so I tossed him on the ground and drew my knife. He tried to scoot away from me but I dragged him back and cut the ropes on his legs.

“You better run boy.” I said looking down at him. He readily took my advice and dashed into the woods. “Kill him.” I said, the sound of tiny feet dashing after the thief could be heard. 

I wanted to see just how vicious my sprites could be. About a minute later I heard screams coming from the forest before coming to a sudden halt. My little sprites came back quickly, their little hands and feet had a distinct red color on them but they still had their adorable smiles plastered on their faces.

“Thief is dead!” they called out to me as they came back to me.

“Good work little ones, there are some boxes on the boat, help Indra and the others bring them to the cave.” They saluted and ran off to the ship.

I went over to the cave and got to work immediately, pushing my mana into the earth. I made a ramp and elevated the entrance to the cave. I started with making sure the floor of the cave was level, the stone bent to my will and flattened out.

Next was the ceiling, there were a few hanging chunks of tone which could be dangerous to sleep under. I did the same thing with the ceiling that I did with the floor, once it was all smoothed out up top I started working on the walls, by this time the girls and sprites had brought a few of the boxes inside.

I ignored them and kept working. I felt almost like a hobbit with my home in the ground, and with that thought I smiled and tried to make my home just like them. I did have to stop once I had smoothed the walls and made a few adjustments that I felt were necessary.

I made a large fireplace in the center of the cave, it was partially enclosed on the sides with a stone chimney leading up to the ceiling, no one wanted to suffocate from smoke while they were sleeping.

I sat down on the floor and sipped from my water skin, while I rested the girls started to put the cave together, bedrolls were placed on the far side of the fireplace. They reorganized the foodstuffs that we had along with cooking utensils, they also started laying down some treated pelts that would make good bedding.

I let them work and pulled an item from my pocket, the bright orange flower sat in my palm, the little blossom still smelled delicious. A sudden urge came over me to eat it and without thinking I placed the blossom into my mouth, unexpectedly the blossom turned into a hot liquid like substance when it hit my tongue. 

The liquid shot down my throat, when it got to my chest it felt like my heart had been set ablaze and it started pumping hard, it wasn't just my blood that flowed faster. Mana coursed throughout my entire body, I let out a breath that turned out to be hot steam, I remembered the mana burn I had suffered from back on earth.

If my body was of a lesser race I could only imagine what kind of torture eating an earth blossom would have been. The heat lasted a few more minutes but as I started to cool down I could feel that my mana had recovered, it wasn't just being fully recharged either, I could feel my capacity for mana had expanded. 

The growth was significant enough to allow me to perform two summoning rituals back to back, though as I had the thought about summoning twice in a row I felt my grimoire shift.

I summoned my grimoire, I cracked the book open and found the information about summoning on the first page. I looked up, the sprites were playing with one another and the girls were starting to prepare dinner.

I looked back down and began to read from the passage, it wasn't too hard to follow, but what it came down to was that the basic spell I knew was unable to be cast multiple times a day. There was however good news, the amount of sprites I could summon depended on the amount of mana I put into the spell, there was a natural cap on what the summoning spell could handle. So I could pump as much mana as I could into the spell without worrying too much.

I used my knife to open a cut on my hand and started drawing the summoning circle, “Master, what are you doing?” Looking up I saw three curious faces watching me.

“I am performing a summoning spell, the sprites you see over there are my servants, they are bound to my service and in exchange I protect and care for them.” I explained. While writing the runes.

“Can we learn?” I stopped writing the rune and looked up, it hadn't been Indra who asked but Satera the orange haired sister. 

Could they learn? To be witches?